Material Culture - World press

[Bornholms Tidende: "Hard concrete in new soft frames"]

Yesterday the workshop made it to an entire page in the regional newspaper Bornholm Tidende (Bornholm Journal). A wonderful piece of reporting that really makes the reader feel on site with the concrete pour the day before. I'm quoted about the wonders of fabric forming, and the local concrete truck driver, Flemming, is featured big time as well. It's just big, local news - and my mother will be very proud of the exposure.

I'm sure the article has been read by a lot of people - the next page was the football section with big news on the local teams.

A few days ago, another article featured the workshop as well - yay.

[Bornholms Tidende: "Kan beton være blødt"]

Material Culture - Pour day

[Image of a team after successful pour of one of their fabric formed concrete shell elements]

Just finished an exciting pour day in the Erasmus workshop I also wrote about here. The four formwork pieces constructed by students were filled with concrete from our sponsor, the local concrete factory.

Below are a few images from the stormy, yet sunny day.

[Team working on a 5 meter long fabric formed concrete wall. Only 5 cm at the most narrow point made pouring directly out of the truck impossible - in stead the wall was poured by hand]

[Image of fabric formed concrete wall after the pour. The turf pieces on top are from the lawn. Their function is to weigh down folded down fabric flaps on the top from flying away...]

[Team working down reinforcement into their concrete bridge, poured on site - the fabric formwork was constructed in sections off site and moved to the site]

[This an image of the last group's concept model - a 'wood shelter' in which the wood forms the interior space cast directly into the fabric form. Wedges placed between the logs makes it easier to remove the wood after the pour - or when it is to be used]

Material Culture - fabric formwork workshop

I've been busy the past week with an Erasmus summer school in the 'Material Culture' series, which has included workshops dealing with catalan vaults (Barcelona); bricks (Netherlands); wood (Norway) and stone masonry (Ireland). In Denmark the choice of a 'cultural' material was concrete - and I have been fortunate to be part of the planning of a workshop dealing with fabric formed concrete structures.

Tomorrow is the big pour day - and everything is wonderfully hectic and many things still to be resolved in the making - quite in the nature of the workshops. That you learn a lot of the material nature as you go along and do things.

The image above is from a crit. One team has the site of a ditch and is assigned to make a crossing. The installation is wonderful, discussing the spatial qualities to be obtained by placing objects that affords crossing and invites for actually inhabiting a space.

Of course we've done a lot of pouring as well - more pictures to come.

Best regards from Bornholm

Concrete mattresses and curtains

Here's a few pictures and a link to remind myself to look further into the product of Pro-Dive Marine Services. The company has some really specialized flexible concrete products for the off-shore use and underwater pours. They work in conjunction with FoundOcean ("FoundOcean is the leading subsea and offshore grouting specialist for the global energy construction industries" - now you know).

[Massiv Mesh by Pro-Dive Marine Services]

Massiv Mesh

We learn from the web site about the company's Massiv Mesh that it is a flexible, concrete mattress consisting of hexagonal concrete elements linked together with high strength non-degradable polypropylene rope.

[Flexiweight by Pro-Dive Marine Services]

And about Flexiweight: 

"Flexiweight is a concrete mattress consisting of hexagonal section bars, reinforced with steel and linked by polypropylene rope. Flexiweight is flexible, robust, designed for ease of installation and available in a range of sizes and concrete densities.

Flexiweight has an established track record for such applications as Stabilization, Crossovers, Trawlboard, Cable protection and Scour prevention."

[Fabric formwork - underwater mattresses]

About their version of fabric formwork we learn:

"Engineering fabric formwork offers a considerable range of possibilities to the offshore industry. In addition to the standard pipeline supports, specially designed fabric formwork is supplied for specific requirements, including:

• Mattresses for load distribution
• Pipeline crossings
• Riser supports
• Anti-scour systems
• Fabric seals for structural work in platforms

These varied systems have been used in water depths of 340 meters; deeper waters are within the scope of the plant."

Concrete curtain

I really like the huge concrete meshes, which greatly outsizes this little but intriguing concrete curtain by the Viennese Architectural Design office Mumex, as seen on Materia: